Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/632

 616 PHOENICIA. annals of one of the oldest and most remarkable people of antiquity; and, by a perverse fate, the in- ventors of letters have been deprived of that benefit which their discovery has bestovi'ed on other, and often less distinguished, nations vrhich have bor- rowed It. The arithmetical system of the Phoenicians re- sembled that of the Egyptians. The units were marked by simple strokes, whilst 10 was denoted either by a horizontal line or by a semicircle; 20 by the letter N; and 100 had also a special mark, with strokes for the units denoting additional hundreds. (Gesen. Mon. Phoen. i. 1. c. G.) Their weights and measures were nearly the same as those of the Jews. The Phoenicians, and more particularly the Si- donians, excelled in the glyptic and plastic arts. Their drinking -vessels, of gold and silver, are fre- quently mentioned in Homer : as the silver vase which Achilles proposed as the reward of tlie victor in the funeral games in honour of Patroclus (^Jliad, xxiii. 743), and the bowl given to Telemachus by Mene- laus. {Od.'iv. 618 ; comp. Strab. xvi. p. 757.) The Phoenicians probably also manufactured fictile and •glass vases ; but the origin of the vases called Phoe- nician, found in Southern Italy, rests on no certain authority. They particularly excelled in works in bronze. Thus the pillars which they cast for Solo- mon's temple were 18 cubits in height and 12 in circumference, with capitals 5 cubits high. From the nature of their country their architecture must have consisted more of wood than of stone ; but they must have attained to great art in the preparation of the materials, since those designed for the temple of Solomon required no further labour, but only to be put together, when they arrived at Jerusalem. The internal decorations were carvings in olive-wood, cedar, and gold. The Phoenicians do not appear to have excelled in sculpture. This was probably owing to the nature of their religion. Their idols were not, like those of Greece and Pome, elaborate representations of the human form, but mere rude and shapeless stones called Baeiuli; and frequently their temples were entirely empty. Figures of the Phoe- nician Venus, but of very rude sculpture, have, how- ever, been found in Cyprus. The Phoenicians brought to great perfection the art of carving and inlaying in ivory, and the manufacture of jewellery and female ornaments, which j)roved of such irre- sistible attraction to the Grecian and Jewish women, as may be seen in the story of Eumaeus in Homer (Oii. XV. 415), and in the indignant denunciations of Isaiah (iii. 19). They likewise excelled in the art of engraving gems. (2 Chron. ii. 14.) Music is said to have been an invention of the Sidonians (Sanchoniath. p. 32, ed. Orell.), and a peculiar sort of cithara was called vpo(poivi^. (Athen. iv. 183.) VIII. Manufactures, Commerce, and Navi- gation. The staple manufacture of Phoenicia was the celebrated purple dye ; but it was not a monopoly. Ezekiel (xxvii. 7) characterises the purple dye as coming from Greece ; and Egypt and Arabia also manufactured it, but of vegetable materials. The peculiarity of the Phoenician article was that it was obtained from fish of the genera buccinum and murex, which were almost peculiar to the Phoenician coast, and which even there were found in perfection only on the rocky part between the Tyrian Climax and the promontory of Carmel. The liquor is con- PHOENICIA. tained in a little vein or canal which follows the spiral line of these molluscs, and yields but a very small drop. The fluid, which is extracted with a pointed instrument, is of a yellowish white, or cream colour, and smells like garlic. If applied to linen, cotton, or wool, and exposed to a strong light, it successively becomes green, blue, red, and deep purple ; and when washed in soap and water a bright and permanent crimson is produced. The buccinum, which is so named from its trumpet shape, is found on rocks near the shore, but the murex must be dredged in deep water. The latter, in its general form, resembles the buccinum, but is rougher and more spinous. The Helix ianthina, also found on the Phoenician coast, yields a similar fluid. The superiority of the Tyrian purple was owing to the abundance and quality of the fish, and probably also to some chemical secret. The best accounts of the.se fish will be found in Aristotle (/7. Anim. lib. v.) and Pliny (ix. 61. s. 62) ; and es- pecially in a paper of Reaumur in the Me moires de VAcademie des Sciences, 1711; and of the manu- facture of the purple in Amati, De Restitulione Pur- purarum, and Don Michaele Piosa, Dissertazione delle Porpore e delle Materie Vestiarie presso gli Antichi. The trade seems to have been confined to Tyre, though the poets speak of Sidonian purple. (Ovid, Tr. iv. 2. 27.) Tyre, under the Romans, had the exclusive privilege of manufacturing the imperial purple, and decrees were promulgated pro- hibiting its use by all except magistrates. (Flav. Vopisc. yl?«rcZ. c. 45 ; Suet. Nero, 32.) The manu- facture seems to have flourished till the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. As Tyre was famed for its purple, so Sidon was renowned for its glass, which was made from the fine sand on the coast near Mount Carmel. Pliny (xxxvi. 65) describes its discovery as accidental. Some merchants who had arrived on this coast with a cargo of natron, employed some lumps of it, instead of stones, to prop up their cauldron ; and the natron being melted by the heat of the nre, produced a stream of glass on the sand. It is probable, however, that the art was derived from Egypt, where it flou- rished in very ancient times. The Sidonians made use of the blowpipe, the lathe or wheel, and the graver. They also cast glass mirrors, and were probably ac- quainted with the art of imitating precious stones by means of glass. (Plin. I. c.) The Phoenicians were also famous for the manufacture of cloth, fine linen, and embroidered robes, as we see in the description of those brought from Sidon by Paris (jriirXoi irafx- ■no'iKiXoi, fpya yvvaiKoov 'ZiSoviaiv, Iliad, vi. 289), and in Scriptural allusions. (2 Chron. ii. 14, &c.) Phoenicia was likewise celebrated for its perfumes. (Juv. viii. 159 ; Plin. xi. 3. s. 2.) Assyria and Egypt, as well as Phoenicia, had reached a high pitch of civilisation, yet the geogra- phical position of the former, and the habits and policy of the latter, prevented them from commu- nicating it. On the Phoenicians, therefore, devolved the beneficent task of civilising m.ankind by means of commerce, for which their maritime situation on the borders of Europe and Asia admirably fitted them. Their original occupation was that of mere carriers of the produce and manufactures of Assyria and Egypt (Herod, i. 1); but their maritime supe- riority led them to combine with it the profession of piracy, which in that age was not regarded as dis- gr.iceful. (Thucyd. i. 5 ; Hom. Od. xv. 415. &c.) They were especially noted as slave-dealers. (Heroil.